Hardware

Posts related to computer/networking hardware.

New Server – 01

I am in the process of setting up a new server.  This is my first server build.  In fact, this is my first full network setup.  We are going in this weekend and upgrading all the systems (clean installs) to Windows 7 Professional.  The server I am currently setting up (just finished putting it together) will be setup as a domain controller as well as a file server among other roles.  I have played around with servers that have already been up and running, but this is my first full implementation of a server from scratch.  Oh the joy!Currently waiting on updates to finish.  I have the server pretty well customized an activated.  After initial updates, then I can start adding the roles.  May post my progress along the way.

Ghost Printer Stops Mouse In Movement

So today I came across an unusual problem.  Probably very rare as I was unable to find any useful forum posts.  Basically, a customer reported to me that when they print [to a shared printer] the mouse stops moving until the printer is done.  My first thought was that the spooler service must be causing user input to freeze/hang.I first looked into my spooler suspicion.  The keyboard was unaffected when the printer was active, however, the mouse locked up pretty much from the time paper was pulled into the printer until the printer shot the paper out.  The mouse was wireless/USB.  The computer was sitting side by side to the printer.  The printer was hooked up with a USB cable to computer B and was shared over the network to aforementioned computer.

I hooked up a USB mouse just to rule out another piece of the mystery.  Not to my surprise, the USB mouse was unaffected while the wireless mouse froze.  What was really fishy was that even if I printed from computer B [the host computer] the mouse on computer A would still lock up.  This lead me to believe that the problem was obviously coming from the printer itself.  My assumption was that some electrical noise was coming from the printer and the USB mouse receiver was getting interference and causing the mouse to be useless.  I plugged the receiver in to a back USB port putting it at least a foot away from (rather than 1 inch) the side of the printer and this resolved the problem permanently.

Just thought I’d share this likely rare occurrence with other techs.  Anyone with a similar experience or a technical explanation feel free to comment.  Thanks for reading.

Ethernet over Power

For anyone who isn’t familiar with this technology yet, it’s worth getting to know about.  My company is helping a customer setup a wireless configuration that will broadcast from his front porch through the whole house, and onto the back porch.  We have considered running cables and hard wiring the house, but it is an old house and the walls are mostly solid making it difficult to do this.  We want to hardware an access point on either end of the house providing to strong connections from either way.  To do this, we are going to use Ethernet over Power line Adapters (EoP).  These adapters translate a regular CAT5/6 Data connection into frequencies that can be transmitted straight into the outlet into the internal circuitry of the building on one end.  At the other end is another adapter plugged into an outlet somewhere within the building which translates that electrical frequency back into a low voltage CAT5/6 Data signal.  We will attach two of these “receiving” EoP adapters to outlets at either end of the house.  Of course the third “uplink” EoP adapter will be near the router and modem.  Then we should be able to configure a Wireless Access Point (WAP) at each of the “receiving” EoP adapters.  This should ultimately be much cheaper than having to put cables into the house.  And we really hate using Wireless-to-Wireless Access Point connections.  Typically creates too much latency.If you have a need for one of these, check out this Linksys PLEK400 Powerline Adapter Kit available @ officemax.com: